Quevedo EM and Sustainable Dev

delivering solutions

Future-Proofing Higher Education: Sustainability and Leadership in the Academy

Offered to SEHSA 2006

byEdward QuevedoWSP Environmental North AmericaFall 2006


Overview of Our Conversation

Compliance, Education, and Leadership – Using the challenges of EHS compliance to educate the next generation?

How can we contribute to the Mission of our Institutions while improving EHS performance?

What is Sustainable Development and why is it relevant to the EHS professional?

Sustainable Development and Academic, and National, Leadership


What is the relevance of EHS

Compliance to Education in the

Academy?


EHS Compliance

Every EHS law and regulation is in place because of the products and artifacts we produce and the way we produce them

By weight, 89-91% of what we take from the Earth to make products is lost as waste during the manufacturing process

Much of the rest is disposed at the end of useful life

NaturalResources

Goods andServices

Pollution, Waste and Environmental

Disturbances


Does EHS Compliance result in Environmental Protection and Improvement in Quality of Life?


Another Perspective: Enforcement


The EHS Enforcement Picture 122 Universities and

Colleges “visited” since 1998

• New England, West Coast, and Southeastern Focus initially

• Midwest inspection plan developed for 2007

Average site inspection time – 12 days

Average number violations noted – 112

Average fines levied - $241,000

Corrective actions per campus – 159

full

U.S. Department of LaborOccupational Safety & Health Administration


Corrective Action Models

Focus is on University-wide safety committee and satisfaction of Federal Sentencing Guidelines requirements

Sentencing Guidelines• Policy on EHS Compliance• Internal Audit functions• Hazardous waste management

plan• Staff involvement (faculty and

Deans) Business Plan for the OEHS

Department Models from other defense and

compliance projects


Environmental Management Systems and Leadership

What they do• Focus management

attention• Distribute responsibility• Emulate financial

management tools

How they work• Fun• Collaboration• Discipline• Accountability

Why they matter


What we know

The traditional model will fail, and continue to fail

We need all hands on deck

The reputational risk and branding damage is too large to justify any other course of action


Education and EHS Leadership The Financial Markets: FTSE for

Good, Dow Jones, Calvert, Domini – Trading over $3B in publicly held funds

All use EMS as a filter for Responsible Corporate Governance

“EMS and EHSMS will be the management model of the future where EHS product regulation and stakeholder expectations of life cycle management and Corporate Responsibility are growing”

Rex Tillerson, CEO, Exxon Corp.


Education and EHS Leadership

“Education about Corporate responsibility is central to our role. We believe that social, ecological, and financial responsibility form the backbone of our operations and must increasingly inform our curriculum. Talloires is only a part of that.” Shirley M. Tilghman

PresidentPrinceton University


The Talloires Declaration and the Mission of Higher

Education


Talloires – Sources and Text Agenda 21 Chapter

36

Agenda 21 Chapter 4

Johannesburg Summit (WSSD) Section 3

A long and sustained movement in Europe, Latin America, and Africa


Talloires We, the presidents, rectors, and vice chancellors of universities

from all regions of the world are deeply concerned about the unprecedented scale and speed of environmental pollution and degradation, and the depletion of natural resources.

Local, regional, and global air and water pollution; accumulation and distribution of toxic wastes; destruction and depletion of forests, soil, and water; depletion of the ozone layer and emission of "green house" gases threaten the survival of humans and thousands of other living species . . . the security of nations, and the heritage of future generations. These environmental changes are caused by inequitable and unsustainable production and consumption patterns that aggravate poverty in many regions of the world.

We believe that urgent actions are needed to address these fundamental problems and reverse the trends. . . .

Universities have a major role in the education, research, policy formation, and information exchange necessary to make these goals possible. Thus, university leaders must initiate and support mobilization of internal and external resources so that their institutions respond to this urgent challenge.

We, therefore, agree to take the following actions:


Talloires1. Increase Awareness of Environmentally Sustainable DevelopmentUse every opportunity to raise public, government, industry, foundation, and university awareness by openly addressing the urgent need to move toward an environmentally sustainable future.

2. Create an Institutional Culture of SustainabilityEncourage all universities to engage in education, research, policy formation, and information exchange on population, environment, and development to move toward global sustainability.

3. Educate for Environmentally Responsible CitizenshipEstablish programs to produce expertise in environmental management, sustainable economic development, population, and related fields to ensure that all university graduates are environmentally literate and have the awareness and understanding to be ecologically responsible citizens.

4. Foster Environmental Literacy For AllCreate programs to develop the capability of university faculty to teach environmental literacy to all undergraduate, graduate, and professional students.

5. Practice Institutional EcologySet an example of environmental responsibility by establishing institutional ecology policies and practices of resource conservation, recycling, waste reduction, and environmentally sound operations.


Talloires6. Involve All Stakeholders

Encourage involvement of government, foundations, and industry in supporting interdisciplinary research, education, policy formation, and information exchange in environmentally sustainable development. Expand work with community and nongovernmental organizations to assist in finding solutions to environmental problems.

7. Collaborate for Interdisciplinary ApproachesConvene university faculty and administrators with environmental practitioners to develop interdisciplinary approaches to curricula, research initiatives, operations, and outreach activities that support an environmentally sustainable future.

8. Enhance Capacity of Primary and Secondary SchoolsEstablish partnerships with primary and secondary schools to help develop the capacity for interdisciplinary teaching about population, environment, and sustainable development.

9. Broaden Service and Outreach Nationally and InternationallyWork with national and international organizations to promote a worldwide university effort toward a sustainable future.

10. Maintain the MovementEstablish a Secretariat and a steering committee to continue this momentum, and to inform and support each other's efforts in carrying out this declaration.


What is Sustainable Development? Economic

Development drives the world

In the 1930s, the industrial world began to respond to labor strive

In the 1960s, rivers began burning and leading nations began to pass environmental laws

In 1972, the Stockholm Conference convened


Sustainable Development: Design of the Future and Opening Real Doors to

Student Opportunity


What does Sustainable Development Look Like?


What does Sustainable Development Look Like?

Is this the Realm ofSustainable Development?


Well, No

Not Really . . .

So, then, what is the better picture???


A More Accurate Picture

The InfrastructureOf Industry and Our Economies

StakeholdersStudents, Parents, Suppliers, and Institutions of Civil Society .

Natural Resources


The Fundamental Premise Sustainability is a

Discipline

It is a decision-making tool

It helps us with our two most important duties• Measurably better

decisions over time in the face of risk and change

• No surprises – anticipating and being proactive (i.e., paying attention)


With Only Three Kinds of Resources, we must use them all with caution, humility, and effectiveness

Used to grow or enhance:

Used with a viewto protecting and growing:

Invested to enhance:

Better decision-making &Organizational performance

Financial Capital

Human & Social Capital

Natural Capital

$


The Theme: Business at Usual is not Good Enough


Hypothesis and Opportunities:

By teaching long term financial and social responsibility as fundamental to business Citizens

Compliance Leadership Curriculum (the Ithaca

Model) The Built environment (and

going beyond LEED) Operations and SMS –

Implementing Talloires


The Fundamental Hypotheses The future of the

Academy depends on the example we set

Gaining and holding our Institutions’ Competitive Edge through Brand and Reputation

Becoming more central to governance and decision-making


Facing the Future: Future-Proofing


Ethics, Culture, and Duty Diversity and Global

Citizenship

Peak oil and preparing for a Hydrogen Economy

Ecosystem collapse and the Millenium Ecological Assessment

Carbon and Consumption Taxes

National Governments discussing Responses to, not the theory of, drastic Climate Change

Our students must live and thrive in this world


The Future - A Campus that Embodies, and Teaches . . . The Values of the Academy

An economy that is based on non-carbon fuels

Communities that are net exporters of renewable energy

Asset value enhancement through use of structures

Anticipating market demand

Generating Quality of Life Ensuring fulfilment and

enrichment through work


Equity - Ecology - Economy


“The gross national product includes air pollution and advertising for cigarettes, and ambulances to clear our highways of carnage. It counts special locks for our doors and, jails for the people who break them.

It grows with the production of napalm and missiles and nuclear warheads…

And if the gross national product includes all this, there is much that it does not comprehend. It does not allow for the health of our families, the quality of their education, or the joy of their play. It does not account the beauty of our poetry or the strength of our love for each other, the intelligence of our public debate or the integrity of our public officials.

It measures neither our wit nor our courage, neither our wisdom nor our learning.

The gross national product measures everything, in short, except that which makes life worthwhile, and it can tell us everything about us-- except whether we are a good people. . . .”

Robert F. Kennedy, May 1968, Chicago


Further Reading The Dance of Change, Peter Senge, 1999

The Millenium Ecological Assessment (March 2005, Watson et. al)

Believing Cassandra, Alan Atkisson (2001)

Ithaca College (www.ithaca.edu/sustainability), Univ. of British Columbia (www.ubc.ca) ; London School of Economics (http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/summerSchool/brochure/economics/EC240.htm)

Holistic Management, Allen Savory & Jody Butterfield (2002)

Agenda 21 and the 2004 WSSD Johannesburg Plan of Implementation, (www.unep.org)

Talloires Declaration (www.talloires.org)

The MEA - http://www.maweb.org/en/products.aspx


Thank you for your kind attention!


Edward L. QuevedoSenior Director, Global Integrityand Sustainability Programs(c)+1.415.806.0355(o) +1.415.402.2207(e) [email protected]

WSP Environmental North AmericaSan Francisco Offices:405 Howard St., Suite 500San Francisco, CA 94105

And offices in Palo Alto, Seattle, Austin, London (Headquarters), and throughout Africa, Europe, and Asia

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